White Ribbon UK’s Labour Party Conference Fringe Event
sponsored by Principle One
The case for investing in preventing men's violence against women and girls
Join White Ribbon UK, The Centre for Protecting Women Online and an expert panel to hear the interim findings from our upcoming report The Case for Investing in the Primary Prevention of Men’s Violence Against Women and Girls.
Our report focuses on the case for Government to invest in the primary prevention of men’s violence against women and girls, to meet its target of halving men’s violence against women in a decade.
Our panel of experts will discuss the interim findings and what more needs to be done to end men’s violence against women and girls in the next nine years.
We are pleased to be working with Principle One for this event.
Location: Revolution Bar, Dockside Venue, Albert Dock, L3 4AE
Date: 30th September 2025
Time: 10am - 12pm
Refreshments and breakfast food served
Wheelchair accessible venue
To RSVP to this event, please email us at policy@whiteribbon.org.uk
Meet Our Speakers
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Alex is the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Victims in the Ministry of Justice and has been the Labour MP for Pontypridd since December 2019. Alex previously served as Shadow Minister for Domestic Violence and Safeguarding from November 2023 to July 2024.
Alex has and continues to campaign to prevent violence against women and girls and highlights the importance of changing cultures to prevent the normalisation of misogyny and sexism, which lead to violence.
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Andrea Simon has been Executive Director of End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW) since January 2021.
EVAW is a registered charity which carries out policy and campaigning, with a membership of 160+ frontline specialist VAWG services, NGOs, academics and survivors working to end VAWG in all its forms.
Andrea is a member of the London Policing Board and co-chairs the London Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime’s (MOPAC) VAWG Board. She was also a panel member for the Independent Sentencing Review.
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Professor Olga Jurasz is professor of law at the Open University (UK) and Director of the Centre for Protecting Women Online - an interdisciplinary unit focusing on research, policy engagement and creating social impact in relation to women's online safety.
Her research expertise is in international law, human rights, legal responses to violence against women (including online violence) and feminist approaches to governance of online spaces and online safety. Since 2024, she serves as an Independent Expert to the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on combating technology-facilitated violence against women and girls.
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Ben is the Chief Operating Officer and co-founder of Principle One, a consultancy supporting UK Law Enforcement, National Security and central government clients to address the challenges of an increasingly diverse threat environment.
With over 25 years experience of complex project and programme delivery in both the private and public sector, he is now responsible for overseeing Principle One’s customer delivery while also scaling the systems, processes and people to support the growth of the business.
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Steve is the Vice-Chair of White Ribbon and has been a member of the Board of Trustees for the last 8 years.
Before taking early retirement he worked in policy and strategy at a local and regional level, working on issues as diverse as flooding, economic growth, housing and, of course, violence against women and girls. Prior to this he worked in both the public and third sectors on regeneration schemes around the country. Steve is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
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Lynne has spent over 17 years as a charity CEO, leading organisations across the third sector with a focus on social justice, health, and advocacy. Her work has supported young people, survivors of sexual violence, older adults, and people with learning disabilities, reflecting a deep commitment to equity and inclusion.
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David Burton-Sampson is the first Labour Member of Parliament for Southend West and Leigh, on the Essex coast. He originally trained as an actor in his home town of Liverpool but gained professional experience in banking, later becoming the first store manager at Metro Bank. Subsequently, he started his own mortgage business. In Parliament, he is a member of the Women and Equalities select committee and helps to lead APPGs on Fair Banking, Financial Education, Ukraine and Male Suicide.
If you would like to submit a question to our panel, please email policy@whiteribbon.org.uk
Key findings and preliminary recommendations of The Case for Investing in the Primary Prevention of Men’s Violence Against Women and Girls
Purpose of the Research: This research has been funded by the Open University’s Open Societal Challenges to look at the existing evidence base and put together a case for support that urges the Government to invest in primary prevention.
Key Finding 1
This report has found existing research that shows there are effective frameworks that have been used in initiatives in the UK and internationally that reduce violence against women and girls (VAWG). Examples of work that challenge our understanding of gender stereotypes and that engage men and boys were particularly successful. This work is called primary prevention.
Key Finding 2
Some of the evidence we looked at states that this work is critically underfunded and that violence against women and girls will not be halved in a decade without investment in primary prevention initiatives.
Key Finding 3
The lack of funding into primary prevention programmes causes an inability to provide interventions at scale with robust systematic monitoring, evaluation and evidence-building.
This makes programmes harder to evaluate individually and to compare with other programmes. In addition, the research found a lack of good data about primary prevention collected nationally. This means there is no national standard for primary prevention programmes to measure their effectiveness against.
This hinders the development of effective national approaches and national investment.
Key Finding 4
Primary prevention in schools needs to include teaching staff not just children. The research found that the attitudes and behaviours, especially language, of staff perpetuated sexist gender stereotypes.
The evidence shows a whole-school approach including pupils, staff and the wider community is needed.
Key Finding 5
The research shows the scale of online abuse and harassment that women are experiencing. It also highlights the inadequacy of the legislation, policy and guidance about tackling online and tech facilitated violence against women and girls. The evidence shows that legislation and policy in the UK have heavily focused on service delivery and not on taking a rights-based approach.
Preliminary Policy Recommendations
The government should fund large scale primary prevention initiatives based on successful frameworks which include robust monitoring and evaluation data.
The government must adhere to their state obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Istanbul Convention, particularly with regard to the prevention of VAWG.
The government should commission the ONS to carry out yearly national attitude surveys, with disaggregated data including online and tech facilitated VAWG.
The Department for Education should develop their guidance to schools to implement whole-school VAWG prevention focused on addressing the attitudes and behaviour of staff.
The government and Ofcom should adopt a human rights-based approach to online safety, aligned with Council of Europe standards, and these protections should be embedded into law.
Principle One was established in 2018 as a values-driven business to support public sector customers in achieving their core missions, initially within the Law Enforcement and Policing sector, but now with a far broader reach across Health, National Security and Defence. Shared purpose has always been an integral part of our culture, with our staff heavily engaged in driving the direction of our growth. We deliver both business transformation and enabling technology programmes at a national level and work to support the government tackle Violence Against Women and Girls as part of its Safer Streets mission.
In 2024 Principle One became a White Ribbon Supporter organisation, making a commitment to create a community of allies to raise awareness and call out abusive and sexist behaviour among their friends, colleagues, customers and in the community. In this way, we can go beyond our customer work within the VAWG mission and engage our staff to drive wider change across society.
To find out more about Principle One, visit their website: www.principleone.co.uk/
About Principle One
event sponsor
To RSVP to this event, please email us at policy@whiteribbon.org.uk